


Insubstantial

by flootzavut



Series: all the reasons why [2]
Category: Angel: the Series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: Angst, Episode: s05e04 Hell Bound, Episode: s05e08 Destiny, Episode: s05e10 Soul Purpose, Episode: s05e11 Damage, Episode: s05e12 You're Welcome, Episode: s5e01 Conviction, Episode: s5e02 Just Rewards, F/M, Post Series, Season/Series 05, Souled Spike
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-03
Updated: 2016-10-27
Packaged: 2018-08-19 09:44:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 5,817
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8200525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flootzavut/pseuds/flootzavut
Summary: five reasons Spike didn't call Buffyand the one reason he finally did.





	1. touch

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pfeifferpack](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pfeifferpack/gifts), [zabjade](https://archiveofourown.org/users/zabjade/gifts), [TheSigyn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSigyn/gifts), [Medievalchic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Medievalchic/gifts).



> Enormous gratitude to medievalchic for beta reading, and to -Carrie-Ann- for "Angel-picking" and making sure I didn't get canon in a knot. You are both wonderful!
> 
> Also a big shoutout to the following people who found canon nicknames for Spike and suggested various appropriate ones (their contribution will become clear in chapter five!): pfeifferpack, rabbit_moon1, sunnydalesis, zabjade, Sigyn. (I really, really hope I noted everyone down who gave me ideas, but it was late and I was tired, so consider this also a general shoutout to the denizens of the shoutbox and Chatzy on EF (most of whom aren't members over here afaik), who are always inventive and helpful!)
> 
> This is a sequel or sister or mirror to Dust, and is also my addition to the popular oeuvre "make sense of AtS season five from Spike's POV" :D
> 
> (Also, I know that Buffy gif is way off for post-series Buffy, but I decided Spike would have a happy image of her in his mind. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. :p)

_** ** _

 

* * *

_**touch** _

* * *

 

His first thought is of her. Not just to annoy Angel, though admittedly it's a nice bonus when he realises it pisses off his grandsire so much, but because it was always all about her, to help her, to save her. It's probably not right to admit it, to say the rest of the world could crumble. It's not even entirely true.

He'd save it for the Little Bit. He'd even save it for Dru, after all this time, because she's still his sire and she's still magnificent in her madness, and part of him still likes to think she's out there somewhere causing havoc, even if he doesn't exactly approve. He'd save it because of dog racing and Manchester United and all the things he once told Buffy he loved about this rotten place. He'd save it because it's beautiful and ugly and good and bad and astounding.

But in that moment, he was saving it for Buffy, and when his body is done unmelting and undusting, she's all he can think about. Of course the first thing he's going to do is call her, go to her. First chance he gets.

Then he ends up walking through Angel's desk.

It takes a while to really get his head around it, and longer to realise that even calling Buffy is just not going to work. Some bugger has realised his worst nightmares and tied him to Angel, and he can't get away, can't touch or feel, can't even reliably stay visible. When he realises he wouldn't be able to hold the phone to speak to her...

What's he going to say exactly? "I know I died, but it didn't take, and I'm back. Well not exactly, but kind of, and I want to see you... but I can't leave Los Angeles, or apparently Angel's office. And by the way, I'm sorry I didn't believe what you said, but did you actually mean it or were you just being kind 'cause I was dying? Actually, don't answer that..."

And all this with someone watching and listening to every word. He doesn't even want Fred to overhear that phone call, and she's about the sweetest, kindest lass he's ever had the pleasure to spend time with.

Even if Buffy were okay with this, if she came here to see him... he's not sure he could bear to be in the same room as her and be so completely unable to do anything about it. Not touch her, kiss her... hell, even hug her, tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. That would be torture.

And he has nothing to offer her now. Not his body, not his help. He can't be hired muscle like he was to the Scoobies that terrible summer. He can't even go haunt her and occasionally offer a good piece of advice or a joke or... anything.

He'll wait till he's solid again and can call her himself, can actually leave Wolfram and Hart, go to Rome, touch her. Maybe even his Niblet will find it in her heart to forgive him, and everyone will be loved and it will all be all right and they will be friends. Even if Buffy didn't mean what she said (and he can't allow himself to hope she did), he still wants to be part of her life.

But not like this.


	2. horror

* * *

_**horror** _

* * *

 

He's so grateful he didn't call her.

The phone call where he explained he was incorporeal and couldn't leave Los Angeles would've been a piece of cake compared to the phone call where he tells her he's slowly being dragged into hell, it's getting worse by the hour, and he's losing hope of being rescued.

If he'd made the first, he would have to make the second, and he's so bloody glad he doesn't have to have that conversation. Whether or not she meant what she said, he's absolutely sure she'd rather keep her last memory of him as a hero going up in flames to save the world, rather than a pathetic ghostly being, scared out of his mind by the chasm opening beneath him.

It's not that he thinks he deserves better. He never expected redemption to be so easy, or that one act, no matter how grand or noble, would be enough to make up for a century of death and destruction. He'd thought he was headed  _there_  when that amulet started radiating sunshine through his flammable self, and he'd been... okay with it. More or less.

An impulsive decision to see something through to the end, to save the woman he loves and sod the consequences? That's practically his MO. There's poetry to it.

This is different, though. Bobbing around with no touch or taste or smell, not mattering to anyone. His little safaris to another plane of existence becoming longer and more disturbing, his destination becoming clearer and more horrifying...

Standing around waiting for hell to come and get him has given him too much time to think. It's made him realise how much he doesn't want to go. How much he wants to stay in this world - even as a ghost hanging out with Angel, of all people.

To die in one glorious moment of sacrifice is one thing. To slip in and out of the world, to get a sneak preview of the torments that await him, to fade gradually out of sight and hearing and have only monsters for company, his own personal welcoming committee to hell - it's not something anyone should ever have to bear, not even him.

He never knew before how much he wanted to live, or unlive. The desire burns in him more and more desperately as he starts to lose hold even of this tenuous, twilight existence. He wills Fred and her magnificent brain to find a way, to bring him back, to make him solid again, or at least to keep him from disappearing entirely.

He's terrified.

He wants to see Buffy more than he's ever wanted anything in as long as he can remember. It aches at him, pains him like an open wound, and the fact he might be dying for real this time both makes it worse and makes him certain he's making the right choice. She doesn't deserve for him to pop back up into her life just in time to leave it again, and he's hurt her enough already.

She doesn't need another goodbye, even if he does.


	3. embarrassment

* * *

_**embarrassment** _

* * *

 

Admittedly he was starved for affection, especially after being all toasted and ghosted; desperate to touch and be touched, desperate to feel. But good God, what was he thinking? It's just... sad.

He can't tell Buffy the first thing he did when he finally became corporeal again was to shag _Harmony_.


	4. insecurity

* * *

_**insecurity** _

* * *

 

For a while, he'd really thought he had things worked out. Suddenly he was the good guy, doing the whole dark knight bit in delicious contrast to Angel, CEO of Evil Incorporated. (And yeah, he probably shouldn't have been so smug about it, but really, after Angel cast aspersions on his soul-having-ness and his relationship with Buffy and all, well. You can put a soul in the vampire, it doesn't mean the vampire becomes a bloody Saint, no matter what his poof of a grandsire claims.)

The whole cup of torment thing was a major embarrassment all round, obviously, but still, he beat Angel. Can't put a price on that. Then he got the direct line to the PTB and dibs on the whole saving pretty girls in dark alleys gig.

He began to feel cautiously good about his life for a moment there.

He didn't trust it, obviously. His experiences with the Powers haven't exactly convinced him they could find their collective jacksies with both hands, and he said so. Loudly and often. But secretly, he was well chuffed to feel all chosen and such. (He's not as far removed from poncy people pleaser William as he likes to act. After a century of always being second choice (at best), being needed is like catnip.)

Okay, he royally screwed up with Dana. He's the Slayer of bloody Slayers, he should've had better instincts, should've recognised a piece of his own history when it was played out in front of him. And he was there when Willow did the sodding spell; he's pissed off with himself for not putting the pieces together and realising who and what he was facing.

But he'd been so sure was doing something right with Doyle and the visions. He was rescuing the chits, thinking he was doing them a service, saving lives, all that white hat stuff, only to find out they were in danger purely to make him think he'd made it to the big time.

Out and out manipulation, endangering people for no good reason... It's sick. And hey, he's a vampire, he has a strong stomach. It takes a lot to truly disgust him.

It's worn away his certainties, and most of them weren't too certain to start with. He'd honestly believed he was making the world a better, safer place (okay, and pissing off Angel into the bargain - excellent addition), which is what the soul is supposed to be about for a vampire, right? And it's what Buffy would want him to do, and the few times anyone from Angel's lot takes any notice (Fred, it's almost always Fred), they approve of his intent, if not necessarily his methods, and it's supposed to be part of this whole redemption kick.

Which, well, he isn't Angel, and he doesn't have a hard-on for being redeemed or for getting the sodding shiny shoe bugaboo - it's Peaches who thinks it's all for nothing if he doesn't get to be a real boy or some such. But it just seems to be the thing to do. To make himself... worthy.

And hey, he's been trying to do the right thing for a while now, even before the soul. He wasn't always particularly good at it, but he was trying. Evil demon, doing his best, deserves a little credit. Yes, he did balls it up, but did that really surprise anyone? He  _tried_. And he did all he could to atone for his sins, and then he saved the world.

He foolishly thought maybe he'd stop getting screwed over at some point. Closing the Hellmouth, his spiffy Casper impersonation, nearly ending up in Hell, getting all twisted up over the stupid fake prophecy. At some point it had to stop, didn't it? He'd finally got to somewhere good, was finally doing something he could be proud of. He'd come out the other side and things were looking up.

He was wrong, so wrong about all of it. He'd thought he was doing his bit, proving himself. He'd live up to the title of champion, prove (to Angel, to Buffy, to himself) that he wasn't a one shot wonder, that he had done more than wear a piece of tacky, deadly jewellery. That he deserved the kudos (and maybe even the girl). And he just keeps finding out he's messed up or he's been played or both, and he hates it.

Peaches keeps telling him he needs to move on and let Buffy move on. Which is kind of rich coming from the master of brood himself, but doesn't mean it's necessarily wrong. (God, how the mighty have fallen. Admitting that git might be right about... well, anything? Spike sorta wonders if the soul is driving him round the twist again.)

Buffy... cared about him. And that was precious and wonderful (and still almost impossible to believe). And when the time came, she allowed him his choice and his sacrifice. Maybe... maybe he's supposed to let her do the same?

Really, Spike's just kind of crap at the whole relationship thing, so what does he know? A century of love with Dru was filed with commitment (on his side, at least) and passion (expressed in all kinds of ways, some healthier than others), but it was almost completely useless as preparation for having a relationship with anyone else. Even another vamp, never mind a human, a Slayer. He's hot shit in bed, but that's more or less it. He doesn't have a clue about romancing a woman who's not a vampire and not completely barmy. The closest he came was Harmony, and while he managed to keep her on the hook, his soul is irritatingly insistent that the way he treated her was wrong. Even if he didn't know better, he's damn sure those tactics wouldn't work on Buffy, anyway.

He knows chaining Buffy up and offering to stake his sire didn't go down well at  _all_  - which he should've known at the time, if he wasn't all hopped up on fresh human blood after months of abstinence, but which his vampiric nature still insists was bloody romantic. He thinks wooing her with poetry is also unlikely to impress her. And he doesn't have any moves in between those two extremes.

If he goes to her, what happens next? Where does he start? How does he show her how much she means to him without pressuring her or making her feel guilty? (Or creeping her the fuck out, for that matter.)

He doesn't want her to throw him a bone because she's sorry for him. He would far rather they be friends and have it be real than hold out for a something more that's never going to happen. But the second he sees her, he knows he'll be thinking of those last precious moments under the school, those three words he'd given up hope of ever hearing.

(And in the unlikely event she did mean them, she's going to kick his sorry backside all around Rome for saying she didn't.)

Angel's opinions about what's right for Buffy weigh more heavily on him than they should. and he knows it. Some of it's the blood connection, some of it is the leftovers of a man who wanted so desperately to impress his new family.

And some of it is the treacherous suspicion Angel could actually be right. (It had to happen once in a century.)

He hates to take any notice of Saint Wanker of Forehead, but there's a not insignificant part of him wondering if the Great Poof may -  _may_  - have a point. Maybe.

He's a creature of the night and can never be anything else or give her anything else. Can't give her kids or sunlit days or security. Can't walk with her in the light.

And maybe she doesn't want those things, but he should give her a chance to work that out, yeah? Not saddle her with the responsibility of another undead man relying on her to be his sunshine.

He's not Angel. He's not the kind of blithering idiot who believes in destiny and soulmates and all that rot; he doesn't think Buffy and he are halves of a whole or fated to be together.

He just knows he loves her, and he's not willing to cause her any more pain than he already has.


	5. fear

* * *

_**fear** _

* * *

 

"Sweet-cheeks, what'n hell are you waitin' for?"

Lorne has been on his case for weeks, more so since they got back from Rome. Spike thinks it says a lot that Lorne is now in his corner, not in Angel's. He always assumed Angel's mates'd swallow the whole destined, star-crossed lovers bit wholesale, but apparently not. Fred (God, how he misses Fred) was always gently encouraging. Gunn also seems less than convinced by the soulmate shtick, and Lorne, well...

Lorne isn't hinting or beating around the bush, Lorne just keeps asking him outright why he's not on his way back to Rome already. It'd make him paranoid that Lorne just wants rid of him, except that Lorne is so nice it's almost obnoxious. He's genuinely on Spike's side, surprising as that is.

(Not that Spike'd readily admit out loud just how much it means to him, of course.)

"She's got a new fella now, right? Pretty clear message. Not a lot of room for ol' Spike in her life."

Lorne gives him one of his 'What fools these mortals be' looks that work a whole lot better on actual mortals. "She thinks you're dead, Slim. You think this new fella would last five minutes if she weren't trying to get over losing the one she really wants?"

Spike scoffs. Lorne reckons she's just grieving and filling time, like Spike did when he realised he was hopelessly in love with her. Huh. Spike likes Lorne, he really does, but that sounds like total bollocks.

Yes, she said... what she said... but he was just about to go up in a pillar of flames and dust. Even if she meant it then (and he's not at all convinced she did), he couldn't hold her to it. He knows things said in the heat of the moment don't always hold true when there's no longer an apocalypse breathing down your neck.

Of course, it would probably be a sane idea to find out, rather than sitting around in LA, changing his mind five times a day about what he should do. It makes sense to be sure. And he's always thought getting hurt now is better than getting hurt worse later. That knowing is better than wondering.

But that certainty breaks down when it comes to her. He wants to know, but he doesn't. He wants to be sure, but he's afraid of it. What if she didn't mean it? What if she did? The urge to run is all cockeyed when it's Buffy and he'd be running to her, not from, and he's... just damn confused.

"Sugar, you listen to me, you can't let fear stop you from trying." Lorne's voice is quiet but firm, and oh so sincere.

Since Fred... left... Lorne has quietly taken on the role of, well, not confidant exactly, but the person who most appears to care about Spike on some level, who thinks he deserves to be happy. Who - strange as the notion is in this case - mothers him.

Lorne's ridiculously sweet to everyone, of course, but he's gone above and beyond of late. Spike isn't sure if Lorne is doing it out of the kindness of his heart, in Fred's memory, because Lorne has actually come to like Spike for himself, or some combination of these things, but whatever the reason, he doesn't much mind. He loved Fred; Lorne loved Fred. Both of them are trying to keep on being the men she encouraged them to be. If nothing else, they have that in common.

Spike likes to pretend he's mildly irritated by Lorne's concern, but fuck, he  _really_  misses Fred, misses the idea that there was someone here who liked him instead of tolerating him, and who always had. Not because he was potentially useful or deserved it or because of his relationship with Angel, but just for being who he is.

From the start, she acted like he was someone worth saving, rather than an annoying inconvenience to be got rid of by any means necessary. Most of them just wanted him gone, without caring where he ended up. If they'd had a button to press to fast forward his disappearance, there would've been a queue to hit it, no questions asked.

Fred, she actually wanted to help him. Her first loyalty was to Angel and the team, but she still looked out for him, spent hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to solve his whole lack-of-body issue. He gets on okay with some of the others now (Charlie boy is almost a friend, and he's not had many of those over the decades), but Fred was the first and most stalwart.

It made him feel valued.

If Lorne is being kind to him for Fred's sake... Spike is actually all kinds of okay about that.

Lorne continues to plead his case even while Spike is doing the kind of broody internal monologue he used to leave for his grandsire to indulge in. Occasionally he feels like he's turning into Angel -  _the horror_  - and it's a thought that can boot him out of his internal pity party at high speed. He's kind of a mess, but he's not yet sunk so low as to willingly emulate Tall, Dark and Tortured.

"I bet you whatever you like, if she knew you were alive," Lorne is saying, hands waving wildly in illustration, "she would be here on the first flight she could get."

Spike makes a sceptical noise.

Unexpectedly, Lorne winces, pressing his fingers to his temples. "Oh sweet mercy."

"What?"

"Spikester, the emotion coming off of you - phewee, could you take it down a notch? Or quit singin', unless you're trying to give me a migraine."

"Who's singing?"

"Singing... humming. Heaving a musical sigh." Lorne looks pained. "If I didn't know you needed to talk, I'd be finding myself a good pair of earplugs and a quiet, dark room to lie down in right about now."

"Oh."

Lorne pats his knee. "I know you can't help it, sweetness. Just don't want to end up feeling like my brain's gonna pop while I'm trying to help you sort your head out, capisce?"

Spike smiles wryly. "Thanks." He's seen Lorne hightail it from a room with his hands gripped vicelike to his head to get away from much more important people. There's something comforting in the idea Lorne's willing to risk a steaming headache for him.

"If you weren't so darn-tootin' stubborn, you'd be on your way right now. What's still holding you back from doing just exactly what you've wanted to do since you first showed up here?"

Spike looks away. "I have nothing to offer her," he says quietly. "Can't give her a normal life." It's Angel's line, not his, but he's heard it so many times he almost believes it. "She deserves more. She deserves a chance to find more. 'M not worth giving all that up."

"Au contraire, you delectable English muffin, you..."

Spike raises his eyebrows.

If anyone else said called him that to his face, they'd be carrying their teeth home in a bucket. Assuming they could still walk or carry things. But Lorne has this way about him, and Spike is actually mildly touched to discover he's worth such a personalised nickname.

Still, it's the principle of the thing, so he gives Lorne a look.

Predictably, Lorne takes absolutely no notice, gesturing expansively as he continues. "If she wanted normal, why's she dating the Immortal?" He tuts like an old woman, chiding but kind. "And she's the Slayer. Why in all Pylea would she  _settle_  for normal? That's like a lioness decidin' she'll play house with a tame little pussycat."

Spike frowns. He might not have put it exactly like that, but maybe, in amongst all the flamboyant imagery, Lorne's kind of making sense. And has a point about Buffy's dating habits. Or (more likely?) Spike is clutching at straws because, no matter how hard he tells himself otherwise, actually getting over Buffy is a lot more difficult than deciding he should.

"And you, you deserve better as well, darlin'. You know that, don't you?" Lorne wags a finger in Spike's face. "The vampire who went and fought for his soul for the woman he loves? That's pure poetry. It makes me wanna write a big musical number. You're a big deal, and you're worth more than second fiddle, you hear me?" He purses his lips, somehow managing to channel disappointed mothers everywhere. "It was understandable before, when you'd gotten yourself all crème brûlée'd and Patrick Swayze'd, but now you're back, and you're still hanging around for crumbs from Angel's table?"

Spike winces. Has he really fallen so low?

Judging by his expression, Lorne is well aware he scored a direct hit, and he follows it up with another: "I saw her, you know. After Sunnydale. They regrouped at the Hyperion, made sure everyone got patched up right."

It's pathetic, but Spike can't help it. Lorne doesn't even need to say her name; if Spike were a dog, his ears would just've pricked up. He narrowly manages to tamp down the urge to pin Lorne to the nearest wall and demand every single detail.

"How was she?" His voice doesn't even shake. He's honestly impressed with himself.

Lorne's expression says he's hearing all the things Spike's trying to hide, but it's also warm and sympathetic. "She was grieving."

Spike shrugs a shoulder. "Lost a lot of people. Some of 'em just little girls. Plus her town."

"If only I were an empath demon who could pick up who was most in her thoughts, whose loss hurt her the most keenly. Oh, wait..."

Spike studies Lorne's face for any hint of a lie or exaggeration. He's not sure whether it's to do with the empathy or what, but Lorne is almost as bad a liar as Spike is. And right now, he's not even trying.

Spike swallows hard. "Yeah?"

Lorne squeezes his knee gently. "Yeah."

"Oh."

"And Blondie Bear?"

Lorne says it with so much apparently sincere affection, Spike can't even bring himself to growl at the hated nickname Harmony still sometimes uses. "Yeah?"

"You don't need to go turnin' yourself into Angel. If the girl wanted General Grumpy-Pants, she wouldn't be in Rome. If she wants you, then she doesn't want Angel-lite. And anyhow, between you and me-" Lorne leans in closer, as if he's sharing a deep dark secret "-I love that brooding milk dud to bits, but the woman I met..." He shrugs and tuts and shakes his head. "Well, Crumpet, I think she needs someone with a little pizzazz and a sense of humour, you hear what I'm saying?"

Spike can't help smiling, brief and pained as it is. He and Buffy always did bounce off one another well, even when they were actively trying to kill each other. He misses trading puns and punches and put downs with her.

"You know, asking about her was one of the first things you did when you popped up outta that amulet. Wanting to know if she was okay, where she was... wanting to see her." Lorne gives him a friendly shoulder nudge. "You might wanna give that some thought, Cupcake."

Another significant look, another pat of his knee, and Lorne leaves him to mull things over. Thinking... God, he's done much too much of that of late. Too much thinking, not enough doing. Part of him is so very ready to jump in one of Angel's cool little cars and just drive till he hits the Atlantic, stow himself away on the first boat he can find. Get himself to Rome any which way he can and throw himself on the mercy of the Summers sisters. He thinks he'd even be okay with Buffy staking him on sight as long as he got to see her and the Little Bit one last time.

But he's still so scared.

He's sick and tired of losing people he loves. If Buffy were to reject him, if she just didn't care... he doesn't know what he'd do. He'd rather she slew him right off.

(He knows he's being melodramatic. His leaving her out of the loop for so long will make her furious, not murderous. But part of him would far rather meet his end at her hands than be forced to carry on without her.)

As long as he stays in Los Angeles, there's still hope. Which is totally backwards, he does realise, but he can't seem to argue himself into doing the logical thing and finding out one way or another. Hope is staking him through the heart by inches, killing him slow but sure. Knowing for certain would be better. But...

It's Schrödinger's relationship. As long as he doesn't see her, he still has a chance, the possibility remains. There's no definite 'no'.

When he first came back, he was ready to run to her side - literally, if necessary, oceans and sunlight be damned - and it didn't occur to him for a second to doubt she'd be happy to see him. As a friend and a comrade in arms, if nothing else. Having to wait, having to  _think_ , having to listen to Angel imply and insinuate and outright declare Buffy deserves better...

He's beginning to think there's a flaw in Angel's reasoning, but his usual veneer of brash confidence has taken a beating these last few months. He can't quite convince himself to take the step, to reach out. To follow his blood, to get back to the familiar territory of 'sod the consequences'.

Harm told him Buffy wouldn't care if he negated his sacrifice by being alive (he was taking advice from Peaches, and now he's considering taking it from Harmony? It's official, he's losing it), and he sorta suspects she might be right after all. That his reluctance to let Buffy know he'd come back was less a chivalrous desire to give her back her freedom, to let her keep the memory of him going out in a blaze of glory, and more his own fear none of the things that meant so much to him in those last few days meant quite as much to her.

He's got caught up in the fight again, and it's not his fight, it's Angel's. But he's caught up in it, and in his determination to honour Fred, and it's all tangled up with his fear of seeing Buffy again and tainting the memory of him giving his life for her sake.

He's no longer certain which reasons are actual reasons and which are just excuses. And if he's completely honest with himself... he's really not sure how much more loss and disappointment he can take.


	6. epiphany

* * *

_**epiphany** _

* * *

 

He almost died. Again. It would be a bad idea to give Death another chance to catch him; third time around, it might actually take. It seems foolish to tempt fate.

Watching friends and colleagues get injured or die or worse has put things into perspective. He's seeing clearly for the first time in months, he's finally trusting his own judgement. He gets it now. He has to do this while he's still alive (relatively speaking) and kicking.

If Buffy's angry with him, she's angry with him. He'll cope. If she's moving on with her life, he'd still like the chance to be there to see it. If she didn't mean what she said, well, he long since gave up hoping she'd ever say it at all. She said it once, and that was more than he expected or deserved.

He's come to realise Peaches' insistence about letting her be, letting her have a normal life, ignores a whole bunch of stuff. Stuff Spike knows is way too important to discount.

For starters, is normal even good enough for her? Lorne had a point. She's not normal, she's not ordinary. She's extraordinary. Yes, things have changed now she's not the one and only Chosen One, now she has a chance to make some choices of her own, but still. Does she really hanker after two point five kids and a white picket fence? It seems unlikely.

And of course, when he drills down to the bedrock of Angel's objections to Spike going to find her, one thing is very clear. Angel is mostly just afraid to let Spike near Buffy again in case she picks Spike in the end. (Angel talks a good game when he says Buffy would never, ever choose Spike over him, but actions speak louder. Angel's reluctance to help the two of them reunite is the most hopeful sign Spike has that Buffy might truly be pleased to see him again.)

There are a few other things that've changed Spike's mind about this, but the last is also the most vital: whatever life Buffy wants, it should be  _her_  who gets to choose it, not someone else. Sure as shit not either of them.

Angel talks in terms of noble sacrifice, of loving her enough to let her go, but as time goes on Spike's given it considerable thought and realised it's Angelus all over again. He even managed to stalk her by proxy. He used to kill his victims when he was through controlling and pulling apart every aspect of their lives, but Spike knows him well enough to spot that it really isn't so very different when Angel walks in and out of Buffy's world as he pleases, giving her neither freedom nor commitment, all the while claiming it's for her own good.

Bollocks to that. Spike is done following Angel's example.

Buffy might love Spike, or she might not, but either way, she's a big girl. She's fully capable of telling him to fuck off and leave her alone if that's what she wants. Staying away from her out of a misguided assumption she's not capable of making the decision for herself? Spike has too much respect for the woman he knows and loves and saw grow into her own strength in a way that left him awed.

So if she wants him gone, he's certain she won't be shy about it. It would cut him to the bone, but he'd deal. At least he'd know for sure.

Weighed up against the possibility of never seeing her ever again, there's nothing stopping him that's worth a second thought. It took him long enough to figure out, but now he's realised it, the first thing he does is to march into the Hyperion with the number he threatened out of Andrew and pick up the phone. He takes a breath, swallows hard, and dials the long international number, waits as it rings, wills her to answer now now  _now_.

"Hello?"

She sounds almost the same. A little older and tireder, but still his Buffy. Her voice brings the memory back to him in vivid Technicolor. So familiar and so beloved, and for a second he thinks her scent has wafted up his nose, the image in his head is so clear and sharp and bright.

He takes another deep, unnecessary breath, then lets it out. Two more seconds, and he reminds himself she's going to think he's some mouth-breathing freak who's phoning her up to pant at her. (Which may or may not be true, but at least he's a mouth-breathing freak she knows and might actually want to talk to, if he's really lucky.)

He can't help the instinctive smile at her impatient huff, and it's enough to make him speak at last.

One word. Five letters. Everything he wants in the world.

"Buffy."

 

_**~ fin ~** _

  
_"On ne voit bien qu'avec le cœur._   _L'essentiel est invisible pour les yeux."  
\- Antoine de Saint Exupery_

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The quote is from Le Petit Prince:
> 
> "It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."
> 
> And before you ask... yeah, I'm working on another story in this 'verse already, so please don't come at me with pitchforks for leaving this relatively open ended ;p


End file.
